Inquisition, Part Two
'Tyrants Issue 10. "Inquisition", Part Two. ' Front cover- The Inquisitor stands before the reader in his 'costume'. He is dressed in Roman style plated armour, with a long flowing red cape coming from the shoulders of it. He stands wielding a sword in both hands, pointed upwards as if ready to defend against a blow. He has a red cloth covering his missing eyes and tied around his head. Narration- "Germany, Now. (2008)." The comic opens showing the view from a hill overlooking a large manor nestled along a long, empty winding valley road, with woodland right behind the manor. Inquisitor and his team are stood with their backs to the readers, on top of the hill, in the foreground. "There is our targets humble abode", Inquisitor announces. "Remember the mission. As soon as I alert you to my having procured the information, we leave. No grand-standing, agreed?" "You got it bud", says Texas Holdem. The comic cuts to the texan, as he takes out a pair of binoculars. "Ken take you to the woods behind the house, you boys and gal should be able to in from there pretty easy. I'll then port back here so I ken cover ye." Inquisitor raises an eyebrow. "I think I understood that." "Hah. The Italiano's mockin' me fer my way of talkin'. Fancy that." "Is that the true way that you talk or is that merely part of your... persona?" Inquisitor looks almost disgusted. "Course its way ah talk, The way everybody talked back where ah came from." "Anyway, enough fast-talkin' boys, are we gonna head out and get this done or what?" Skyscraper pouts, hands on hips. "As the lady says." Texas gives a mocking bow, sweeping his stetson off of his head, showing his entirely bald head, and a lattice of small scars. The comic cuts to the woodland, where Viral leans against a tree, arms folded, Skyscraper sits on a log and Inquistor waits, foot tapping on the ground. There is a white flash, and Texas appears with Grapplor. "An' the last 'un. You fellas have fun." He looks to Skyscraper. "An' you too, ma'am." He then takes his sniper rifle off of his back, and disappears with another flash. Inquisitor looks to Viral. "Proceed." Viral gives a disjointed grin that doesn't look quite natural. "On it." Viral's eyes flare white-hot with electricity. In the next panel, his entire body has become white energy, then he flies off and phases through a tree. He is then seen asa jolt of electricity jumping through the trees. Inquisitor looks to his remaining two companions "Now, we wait." And he moves into the undergrowth and hunkers down. The comic follows Viral as jumps between trees and reaches the house, still in electrical form. The comic cuts to his view as he sees the CCTV cameras just below the roof guttering on the old, ivy coloured house. He dives down into the ground itself and disappears. He reappears from the ground directly underneath the camera and flies up at it, as he fuses with it. There is a panel to show an electrical crackle around it. The comic cuts to show a suite of CCTV monitors, and on the desk, is a pair of feet. All of the monitors crackle with electricity. The comic cuts to a man in his late twenties, with spikey black hair, in a simple black t-shirt and jeans, with his feet upon the desk. "Hu-" and before he can say further, Viral's electrical hands come out of the monitors and each hand grabs one of the man's cheeks. The man jolts in the chair with electricity and then passes out as Viral lets go. "Heh. Scratch one" Viral whispers. The comic cuts to Texas Holdem lay across the grass on his front, looking down his sniper-scope, as American Kestrel hunkers down next to him. "Viral is in" comes a speech bubble from Holdem's commlink. "Gotcha." "Can you see the situation inside?" "Negative. Nobody in the place's living areas that I can see, boss." "Well, at least that means that Viral has not been detected." "The guy might be annoyin', chief, but he good at what he does. Breakin' an' enterin''s his thang, y'know."'' "Hence his assignment. The better he does, the less we need to do." "Sounds boring" says American Kestrel with a smile. "This mission is not about fun" says Inquisitor. "We are here for the information, then we leave. Whatever enjoyment or lack thereof we recieve in the process, means nothing." "We got it. You want efficiency. You'll get efficiency", gurantees Holdem. The comic cuts to inside the house where the 'Security Room' door opens, and out strolls the man that has just been shocked into unconsciousness. Small crackles of electricity emit from his feet, The comic shows several. panels of Viral walking through the house, in the body of the unconscious man. Every room and corridor he searches is empty. He scratches his head. Viral's electrical form rises up out of the man, as he collapses. Viral solidifies into human form, and reaches for his commlink. "Ah got in, took out the security guy... don't worry, he's just KOed. Nobody else here, searched the entire place, wearin' the security guy..." "Wearing?" "Possesing. Ah can integrate with bio-electric fields as well as anythin' electrically powered, boss." "And you are certain no-one is present." "Searched every room and corridor, even the wine cellar. Its just that." The comic cuts to Texas, as he moves his sniper rifle to the airfield behind the woods behind the house. "'Copter is still there. But..." he sweeps to the garage next to the house "But they might have taken their road transport and left a security guy. Can't tell." "Wait,,, ain't tried the attic." "Horde's team, along with the ex-Silhouette comprises of several more unaccounted members. It seems unlikely they would all be in an attic." "Big roof space though", says Texas, zooming in on the roof. "We had best be thorough. We will be recieving no payment if we are not", says Inquisitor. "All right, checkin' the attic..." Viral turns electrical, then jumps into his captive again. Viral's take his captive and pulls down the attic hatch. "What the?" He finds a steel secondary hatch with a security combination lock. "Great." He places his hand onto the panel, as electricity flows from the possessed body into it. The body collapses. On the other side of the door, Viral's head rises out, the back of his electrical head to the reader. He sees a multitude of white-walled corridors, something reminiscent of a top-secret science facility. "Jackpot." The comic cuts to him back in the house, solid again. "Okay, so the attic hatch is a guise for a horizontal security door, which leads into some kinda top-secret HQ way bigger than what the roof should allow. Freaky stuff." "Mmh. Heroes. So, they are all located within this bizarre HQ, and this house is a front?" "Would seem to be. Didn't spot anybody, but there's a bunch of rooms and corridors more, and I can't bring mah puppet with me to check it out, so thought I'd check in before I went anywhere." "You have taken out the house's security, yes?" "The cameras, yeah. If you try and come in, there's probably still alarms and what not to deal with. You're gonna have a hard time readin' this girl's mind when you can't even get to her, Quizzy." The comic cuts to Inquisitor, deep in thought, as he takes his hand away from his mouth and smiles. "But you can bring her to me." "What? Possess her. Possible, but heroes can resist this stuff sometimes. But yeah, its a risk, but I could do it. Still'd have to get her out without triggerin' the alarms." "Not a concern. You only need to get her to me mere moments so I can read her mind... unless, of course, you can do that, but if so, I am not sure why Rook would choose me." "This ain't psychic possesion, I possess the electric's in the nervous system. Yeah, I can make the brain do what I want, but I can't actually see thought's or nothin'." "Good to know I still have worth, at least. Viral, I need you to bring her, it seems the best option we have. Are you willing?" "What you mean to ask is, am I a crazy, thrill-seeking nutjob.... Answer? Hell, yeah!" Grinning like the maniac he confessed to be, Viral turns electrical. The comic cuts to show a blonde haired, short woman in a labcoat, at hunkered over a laboratory table. She has a scalpel and is opening up a dead frog... a dead frog with bat-wings. Narration- "Leonie Adler, formerly known as Horde, world-famous xeno-biologist, half-human shape-shifter, cyborg, adventurer, Ethereal monster hunter, ex-super-hero/member of Planet Titan." Over her head is a telepathic speech bubble. "Something is coming for you, Leonie. I do not know what... but I sense something bad." Leonie raises her head, removing the goggles she had on. "Didn't they know I quit?" She stands up, showing her blue cybernetic legs to the reader. "Vot is it you said you said once... a hero nevare gives up", says the telepathic voice. Leonie looks serious. "Warn the others." Viral rises up out of the floor behind her and says "Sorry, no time for that!" Viral shoves his hands into her back, and then phases inside her. Leonie says "Oh yeah! Viral wins, everybody else sucks!" He looks down at his new legs. "Okay, this chick turns to animals.. does she leave the legs behind? Wellllll... ain't my problem. Time to find out!" He transforms Horde's body into a swarm of cyborg bees. "Holy hell! Mecha-bees! This is AWESOME!" The swarms of bees fly down the corridor, as in the background, the head of Sam Slater, formerly Silhouette, appears from another door. "Leonie, where are you going?" But the bees fly on, ignoring him, as they go for the security door. The bees cluster together into several masses, which then merge into several cybernetic rhinoceroses. The comic cuts to show the unconscious man Viral had possessed, lying underneath the attic hatch. In the next panel, the attic hatch explodes outwards into dust and debris, obscuring the man, as the rhinos drop out onto the floor and then run across the floor of the house down the corridor. The comic cuts to an outside window, untouched. Then the window shatters as a rhinoreous ploughs through it, taking the window frame and most of the wall with it. The comic pans out to show the herd of rhinos tumbling through the air. As they fall towards the ground, the rhinos begin to transform into birds, and in the next panel, there is a cloud of bees in the sky. The comic cuts back to Samson Slater, running down a corridor, a large, brown covered, dusty tome clutched under one arm. Samson is realitively small and slight in build, but not without some muscle toning. He is dressed in a simple white t-shirt, brown jacket and black baggy trousers combo, with black hair gelled into points at the front. "Flis, what the hell is happening?" he thinks. The telepahtic thought bubble responds with "I am not sure. I had a sense that something was coming for Leonie, so I warned her and zen... well it seems she has freaked out and left ze building." Samson runs along the corridor until he gets to the broken hatch and looks below. "Urgh. God." The reader doesn't see what he sees. "I don't think she just freaked out Flis. She's trampled Jack." "Mon dieu. Is he all right?" Samson looks away. "Uh. No. No he ain't." He opens the pages of his book. "All right, time to see what I can do with this thing." The comic zooms to a determined look. "Time to get Leonie back."